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Our party of six adults booked a package holiday to Sorrento in Italy with Thomson and travelled out in May. At the same time we also booked and paid for two guided excursions: a half-day visit to Pompeii and a full-day tour of the Amalfi Coast.

At the welcome meeting, we showed Simona, the Thomson Holiday adviser, our excursion vouchers and mentioned that we wanted to visit Herculaneum as well. The adviser told us that we could swap our half-day excursion to Pompeii for a full-day trip which would also take in Herculaneum.

As the departure day for this new excursion clashed with our pre-booked Amalfi tour, we were told that we could take this later in the week. Simona asked us to pay again for both excursions but assured us that this was standard practice and said that Thomson would give us a refund on the original vouchers after our return to Britain.

We did query the fact that the terms and conditions clearly state that pre-booked excursions are non-refundable. Simona said that all the excursions were operated by the same local company so we would not have a problem as we were simply rearranging the dates and times and not cancelling the trips.

On our return I took the vouchers and receipts to the Thomson agent in Milton Keynes and asked for a refund of £440 to be processed. A month later I received a letter from the company’s customer support service in Luton saying that while Thomson was “sorry if you felt you were misinformed by our holiday adviser in resort” this did not alter the fact that the pre-booked excursions were non-refundable.

We feel very aggrieved at this decision. Can you help?

Gill Charlton, consumer expert, replies

While most holiday representatives do receive commission on excursion sales made in resort, we must assume that Simona was unaware that she could not bend the rules in this way.

I told Thomson that I believed your account and therefore it was clear that your party had been misinformed by one of its employees. In the light of this, I did not see why you should have to pay for such a mistake.

After further deliberation, Thomson has agreed to refund the £440 your party paid for the original excursions and will be contacting you to arrange payment.

It can be advantageous to pre-book excursions at busy times of year to avoid disappointment on arrival. However, there may well be a greater choice of destinations and departure dates available in the resort, both from the holiday rep and from independent local travel agencies.

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